As Taiwanese return to work and regular routines following the Lunar New Year break, the hope is for a new start.
It is good to be positive, but wise to be aware of dangers ahead.
With headlines including phrases such as an “age of conflict,” an “era of insecurity” and “the decade of living dangerously,” as well as dire warnings from a historian of lessons from the Cold War being neglected and of stumbling into a “dangerous moment in world history” and Beijing’s preparations for a protracted war in the Indo-Pacific region, a survey of recent reports, forums and interviews might temper positivity.
First, the good news. In the Economist Intelligence Unit’s (EIU) Democracy Index 2023 report, Taiwan ranked No. 10 in the world and second in Asia and Australasia, where it was second only to New Zealand. Taiwan’s democracy was down slightly compared with the previous three years, but is still on an upward trajectory since the first report in 2006. It ranked higher than Japan and South Korea in Asia, and well above the US, which has been labeled a “flawed democracy” since 2016.
However, the EIU report is subtitled Age of Conflict, while the International Institute for Strategic Studies’ Military Balance 2024 report warns of an “era of insecurity,” citing the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the Hamas-Israel war in Gaza, coups in Niger and Gabon, Azerbaijan retaking the Nagorno-Karabakh region and China’s belligerence over Taiwan and the South China Sea.
An analyst in the Military Balance report said that Beijing has drawn lessons from the Ukraine war, developing weapons and capabilities, and laying pre-emptive legal foundations that suggest it is preparing for a “protracted” conflict in the Indo-Pacific region. Its actions are driving massive military spending increases by Japan and South Korea, which are hoping to deter China.
Historian Niall Ferguson in an interview on Wednesday last week with former Australian deputy prime minister John Anderson predicted that “on the current trajectory” of the war in Europe, Ukraine would lose and if the US also fails to defend Israel from a multifront assault in the Middle East orchestrated by Iran and its proxies, it would lose any pretense of a credible deterrence. If this happens, what would stop Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) from attempting to take Taiwan by force, Ferguson asked.
Taking Taiwan by force is something that Xi would want to avoid, former Chinese ambassador to the US Cui Tiankai (崔天凱) told the Asia Society Policy Institute’s Asia Spotlight 2024 conference in Washington on Jan. 25.
Cui was talking with speakers from Singapore, Indonesia, Japan and India, including Indian security expert C. Raja Mohan, who said that India-China ties would not improve until the tensions at the border were addressed, but that the India-China relationship has never been as bad as it is today, with “very limited engagement,” a far cry from the days of the “good neighbor policy” under then-Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping (鄧小平).
Cui assured his fellow participants that China would eventually annex Taiwan, but said that it would not “fall into the trap” of getting involved in a “proxy war” of another nation that was supplying weapons to Taiwan, a clear reference to the US.
Cui said he was talking in a “personal capacity” as a retired diplomat. That is arguable. He was in line with Beijing’s official messaging.
The conference was titled “The Decade of Living Dangerously.” It is not a positive title, but few would argue with the assessment.
Two sets of economic data released last week by the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) have drawn mixed reactions from the public: One on the nation’s economic performance in the first quarter of the year and the other on Taiwan’s household wealth distribution in 2021. GDP growth for the first quarter was faster than expected, at 6.51 percent year-on-year, an acceleration from the previous quarter’s 4.93 percent and higher than the agency’s February estimate of 5.92 percent. It was also the highest growth since the second quarter of 2021, when the economy expanded 8.07 percent, DGBAS data showed. The growth
In the intricate ballet of geopolitics, names signify more than mere identification: They embody history, culture and sovereignty. The recent decision by China to refer to Arunachal Pradesh as “Tsang Nan” or South Tibet, and to rename Tibet as “Xizang,” is a strategic move that extends beyond cartography into the realm of diplomatic signaling. This op-ed explores the implications of these actions and India’s potential response. Names are potent symbols in international relations, encapsulating the essence of a nation’s stance on territorial disputes. China’s choice to rename regions within Indian territory is not merely a linguistic exercise, but a symbolic assertion
More than seven months into the armed conflict in Gaza, the International Court of Justice ordered Israel to take “immediate and effective measures” to protect Palestinians in Gaza from the risk of genocide following a case brought by South Africa regarding Israel’s breaches of the 1948 Genocide Convention. The international community, including Amnesty International, called for an immediate ceasefire by all parties to prevent further loss of civilian lives and to ensure access to life-saving aid. Several protests have been organized around the world, including at the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) and many other universities in the US.
In the 2022 book Danger Zone: The Coming Conflict with China, academics Hal Brands and Michael Beckley warned, against conventional wisdom, that it was not a rising China that the US and its allies had to fear, but a declining China. This is because “peaking powers” — nations at the peak of their relative power and staring over the precipice of decline — are particularly dangerous, as they might believe they only have a narrow window of opportunity to grab what they can before decline sets in, they said. The tailwinds that propelled China’s spectacular economic rise over the past